326 PHYSICAL EXPRESSION. 



(a) After a sufficient repetition of the motions which 

 concur in this action their ideas are associated 

 strongly with other ideas, the most common of 

 which, I suppose, are those excited by the sight 

 of a favourite plaything which the child uses to 

 grasp and hold in his hand. He ought, therefore, 

 according to the doctrine of association, to perform 

 and repeat the action of grasping upon having such 

 a plaything presented to his sight. But it is a 

 known fact that children do this. By pursuing 

 the same method of reasoning, we may see how, 

 after a sufficient repetition of the proper associa- 

 tions, the sound of the words grasp, take, hold, etc., 

 the sight of the nurse's hand in a state of con- 

 traction, the idea of a hand, and particularly of the 

 child's own hand, in that state, and innumerable 

 other associated circumstances, i.e. sensations, ideas, 

 and motions, will put the child upon grasping, till 

 at last, that idea or state of mind, which we may 

 call the will to grasp, is generated, and sufficiently 

 associated with the action to produce it instan- 

 taneously. It is, therefore, perfectly voluntary in 

 this case ; and by the innumerable repetitions of it 

 in this perfectly voluntary state, it comes at last 

 to obtain a sufficient connection with so many 

 diminutive sensations, ideas, and motions as to follow 

 them in the same manner as originally automatic 

 actions do the corresponding sensations, and con- 

 sequently to be automatic secondarily. And, in 

 the same manner, may all the actions performed 

 with the hands be explained, all those that are 

 very similar in life passing from the original auto- 



